The annual event offers 36 of the most promising entrepreneurs the opportunity to pitch their game-changing, low-carbon innovations to over 350 active funders, corporates, support agencies and the media. The final shortlist of the 36 companies that have been handpicked from a highly competitive field to present at the event was announced in December.

Climate-KIC is Europe’s largest public-private partnership focused on transformative climate innovation. The expanding partnership – made up of dynamic companies, Europe’s best academic institutions, forward-looking public sector organisations and their recently-launched Investor Marketplace – is building a critical mass of key players to accelerate the rate at which solutions are brought to market and to scale. Climate-KIC UK & Ireland runs start-up accelerator programmes in four key city-regions – London, West Midlands, Dublin, and Edinburgh – part of a programme to foster the emergence of climate innovation clusters in these areas, around local strengths for the new climate economy.

“To get to the zero-carbon economy, investors, corporates, entrepreneurs and policymakers all have to make different choices” said Dr Tom Mitchell, Director of Climate-KIC UK & Ireland. “Cleantech Innovate provides these key players with the opportunity to make climate-positive choices. We look forward to sharing our vision for innovation and entrepreneurship – and to sharing a few examples of how our partners are realising that vision, including Energy Capital, a cluster initiative in the West Midlands, and MunichRe who are shaping a ground-breaking side-call within our Start-up Accelerator programme, focused on adaption solutions with particular relevance to the insurance industry.”

Charlotte Morton, Chief Executive of We Are Orchard, who are organising Cleantech Innovate 2018, added that Cleantech Innovate shares Climate-KIC’s goal to facilitate the transition to a zero-carbon economy through supporting the most ground-breaking and exciting innovators who can play a key role in combatting climate change and that with just over two months to go and the final shortlist of presenting companies now confirmed, excitement is really starting to build for Cleantech Innovate 2018.